Chapter 28 In space with a junkyard ship

Walking outside the skill shop, I had a few choices to make. Should I continue down the main street towards the city centre, or should I start the next phase of my plan? Perhaps it's best to start making contacts—otherwise, I might run out of time.

So instead of heading further toward the city centre, I crossed the street and entered the non-adventure side of the city. The further I walked, the less crowded the place became, although there were always people. There were more entertainment buildings here, and a lot of bars.

There was a way to do this correctly. I needed to start going into bars, ones that looked promising. What I was looking for were people who seemed to always be inside a bar. Those were the people that you could use to get in contact with other people, or they might offer services of their own.

Unfortunately, it seemed like basically every bar and restaurant close to the main street were just that—just places to eat and hang out in. It took me about an hour to reach the side of the city where things started to change.

Now when I entered a bar, a lot of people looked at me and kept staring at me—like, what was I doing here, and what did I want?

Finally, I was getting somewhere. Now, instead of just poking my head in and doing a quick look-over, it was time to head towards the barman—although in most cases, they weren’t men—and get myself some snacks and a drink. The key was to act like I didn’t notice anything, but you constantly needed to listen to everything.

It had been a while since I had done stuff like this, but less time since I was the one sitting and watching people enter the way I had.

After my second drink, which was heavily laced with alcohol, I left because this place was not something I wanted to mess with. This was just a place for the street gangs around here, and not something that could help me.

As I walked away, I was careful to act like just another tourist, but not to act too naively, so I wouldn’t be too easy of a target. Apparently, there were security cameras in the city, but there was no way all of them worked properly, especially if there were criminal gangs about.

While closer to the main street, in the multi-floor buildings, you could go into the upper floors where there were different businesses, the place where I’ve reached now only allowed you to enter whatever shop or other establishment was on the ground floor. The only way to get up seemed to be if you knew someone.

What I also suspected was that these buildings were connected to the next floor below this one, because there was simply too little traffic in the street to account for how many people were using the different pubs and restaurants. It took me quite a few tries and a lot of walking before I found something promising.

This place I definitely wouldn’t call a pub. It looked more like a whiskey and smoke enjoyer’s place to hang out. The only similar places I’ve seen have been in movies.

There was a twist, however. There were also a lot of screens showing different types of movies all around, but none of them seemed to have any sound.

It took me a moment to realise that you needed to connect with your AR to one of the screens, and then you would get the audio. That was an elegant solution.

The furniture seemed made out of high-quality wood, and when I touched it, I was able to confirm that this was actually wood. Behind the bar, there were the usual racks full of different types of hard liquor, but there were also a lot of different types of smokes.

My AR was showing that some of them were actually dangerous to me, and even more of them could have some effect on human biology that they would definitely be in the category of drugs or recreational drugs.

Fortunately, even the dangerous ones my body could handle. It’s the same way I’ve been able to handle as much alcohol as I’ve been drinking. My body simply was able to process it in a way that wouldn't make me drunk.

So for the first time, I didn’t order anything to eat. Instead, I ordered something that’s really close to just regular old whiskey—at least in its molecular structure—and something very close to a regular cigarette, although there was probably going to be a bit of a fruity taste, which I didn’t mind.

From the end of my finger, I produced a flame and lit my cigarette. There were plenty of ways to light them offered by this establishment, but having my own way of lighting them would definitely be noticed.

The whiskey itself was a bit rough, but it burned like it should. The cigarette tasted of some unknown fruit. At least it wasn’t sweet. The smoke itself was a bit too hot, but I might actually like that.

Entertainment was decent enough, although it was a bit weird to see movies acted out by alien species.

Each of the movies seemed to have a universal translator key given, and after doing a bit of research on it while enjoying my drink and smoke, I found out that using it gave more insight into the movie itself, with what was spoken and how people seemed to act.

It was a nice and elegant solution, although sometimes they seemed to give away too much, so I decided not to use it and enjoy the entertainment in a more traditional way.

It didn’t take me long to realise that this place would be a spot that I would actually like to hang out in. The people here weren’t rowdy, which was a lot better than basically everywhere else.

Before long, I was convinced this was likely the spot where I might actually find the correct people I was looking for. So instead of leaving after one drink and smoke, I decided to take another one, and this time something that more resembled a cigar instead of a cigarette.

It would take a while to finish that, but that was the point of it. So here I was, just enjoying myself while also listening to everything around me.

There seemed to be a few contacts sitting about. One of them seemed to be here for banned drinks and smokes, another one for more elegant cybernetics. But the last one—now that was the one I needed to get closer to, as he dealt with the piracy side of entertainment.

Now I had, in my time, been able to collect quite a lot of movies, TV shows, books—basically everything entertainment back on Earth, without any copy protections. It was a dangerous hobby of mine back then, but hopefully someone is interested in it. And with the amount I had, it should net me a lot of mana credits.

By this time, I had already drunk quite a lot, and security started to look at me like they didn’t know if they should throw me out for being too drunk or not. So I decided to walk to the bathroom to show them that, no, I wasn’t too drunk to keep staying here.

After getting out of the bathroom, which was quite fancy but still quite similar to the way things worked back on Earth, instead of going back to my seat, I stopped and connected to a screen.

It was showing an action movie of a strike team dealing with a dangerous monster loose in a space station. So pretty standard, but the contact I was interested in was also looking at it.

“So how many do you think will make it out alive?” I asked the contact after I had stepped a bit closer to him.

He looked towards me, looking me up and down, deciding if he should answer or not, but fortunately he decided to do so.

“With the rank the monster is, I would be surprised if any of them survived, so there must be a twist.”

“Is that the standard quality of movies, or would you say this one is a good one?”

“That’s an interesting one. For movies of this type, it’s certainly above average. Overall, it’s definitely underneath the half mark.”

“So plenty of masterpieces around. Any recommendations of those masterpieces?”

“Plenty. Just they cost way too much, and the corporations always want to ruin it with their commercials.”

“Oh, don’t get me even started on the corporations with their endless commercials.”

And like that, I was able to sit beside him while we continued to bitch about how chasing profits ruined what could have essentially been masterpieces.

We talked for quite a bit, and I left there with quite a few recommendations for movies and a contact that was happy to see me whenever I stopped by. It was too soon to talk about business—this was just the first time we’ve met—but I had a good feeling.

Now that this business was done with, at least for now, it was time to find myself some tools. At first, I had planned to go back to the shop I saw on the main street that was a mix of pawn shop and repair shop, but apparently there were even more amazing shops like this further away from that street.

As I entered one of these shops, it was so hard to keep focused. Everywhere I looked, there were older-looking devices that had obviously seen better days, and I just wanted to see how they worked and to fix them. Somehow, I managed to resist—until there were so many different types of tools in front of me.

These were the ones that had been fixed by this shop. Fortunately, there was no problem with me picking one of these tools up and looking at them closer.

This was the molecular cutter. I would say about the size of a two-handed circular saw. It weighed almost 5 kilos, but this thing should be able to cut through basically anything.

It was also only priced at 44,000, and more importantly, there didn’t seem to be any hardware or software locks. Meaning I could learn how this worked and be able to fix it and make my own versions of it.

There was also a stitcher here. It only cost 482,000, and while it had obviously seen some serious damage—as the housing it was in wasn’t completely fixed and you could still see where it had been bent and dented quite heavily—the rest of it seemed to have been fixed meticulously. Once again, like with the cutter, it didn’t have any locks.

There was only one security guard eyeing me quite intensely, as I was also the only customer here. Behind the counter was who I assumed was the owner of this shop, as he was busy fixing a device I had no idea what its purpose was.

“I would like to buy this cutter and this stitcher.”

“Go and pick them up,” the shop owner said to his security guard.

The security guard was a head taller than me, although not much wider. He definitely had some cybernetics, but he was trying to hide them. While he packed my purchases up, I transferred the mana credits to the shop.

Turns out that whatever species this shop owner was, they were actually incapable of walking, and a lot of the appendages he was using to repair stuff seemed to actually be cybernetic.

“If you need anything fixed, be sure to come here. I always have fair prices,” the shop owner said after I had transferred the credits.

“I’ll keep that in mind. Can I also get a bag to hold those two boxes in?”

The shop owner looked backward and shrugged one of his pair of appendages. I wonder if that meant the same as it meant for humans. Nevertheless, I received the two boxes in an oversized bag that I picked up using my left hand.

It was now time to head back to the ship. Even though there were plenty of shops I still wanted to visit, I would need to pace myself.

On my way back, I was too busy thinking about testing these tools out, so I had accidentally taken a shortcut. My sensors picked up whoever was in front of me before they made themselves known, but unfortunately, I was way too close, about 10 metres away from them.

That person walked out as soon as I stopped moving. Whoever that was, they looked like a blue monkey, although he was walking upright and had shorter arms. The fur was still there, and even if he was trying to hide it, I could tell that he had plenty of cyberware, but it didn't seem to work as smoothly as I would have expected.

My right arm slowly moved towards my revolver while I also spun my body a bit to hide my left arm.

“Stop. Don’t move an inch. If you do, I will end you before you can draw that weapon. But I will give you a chance to walk away—just hand me that skill stone you’ve got.”

For some reason, I believed what he said. So at least he believed that he could reach me before I could get to the gun. The real question was, how does he know about the skill stone?

“Don’t even try it. I can see in your eyes—you’re not faster than me. Now hand that stone over. And besides, you think security isn’t going to come running when you fire that gun?”

“Why would I care about that? It would be self-defense, and I would have evidence of that.”

“So I guess we’ll do this the hard way?”

With that, silence surrounded us as both of us waited for someone to make a move. My body was flooded with adrenaline. Everything seemed to move in slow motion.

It had only been a few seconds, but I released my left hand, letting the bag drop, while at the same time, my right arm was moving as fast as it could towards my revolver.

I knew that he had cyberware, but still, his speed was so unexpected. Still, I had managed to draw my revolver, and I almost managed to point it at him—even if only at his feet.

His hand had made it to my revolver before I could pull the trigger, pushing it away from him so I wouldn’t have a clean shot.

His confidence seemed to have not been misplaced, although he did make one mistake—he focused too much on my revolver.

So while he was struggling, trying to get the revolver away from me, my left hand had already wrapped around my knife, pulled it out of its sheath, and because I had moved my body sideways, I was hiding my own actions.

Instead of fighting with him to try to point my gun at him, I let him move it away from me, causing him to overbalance. There was confusion—I was certain of it—on his face, but before he knew it, my knife was buried in his head. All of this only took moments.

He was simply one move behind the whole time, but now I would need to deal with a dead body.

As he was starting to fall, all the strength leaving his body, I felt my core pulse and my ability activate. All of it happened so fast—so one moment I was trying to deal with the weight of the dead body, the next I heard the sounds of coins falling onto the ground.

“Master, snap out of it.”

I heard Lola's voice, which snapped me out of the shock I was in.

On the ground, instead of the body, were 23 platinum coins, 1 gold coin, and two silver coins—all of them 100-gram ones. There was no trace that anyone else had been here.

That was only supposed to happen with portal monsters.

Quickly, I collected the coins just in case, picked up my bag, holstered my revolver, and started to move at a bit of a faster pace back toward my ship.

What the fuck had just happened?